backlash – The View from a Drawbridge

Recently I shared this on my Facebook page because it delighted me.

I love that someone is standing up for girls. I love that I’m not the only one in this world who wants girls to love science and dream just as big as their male counterparts. This small act just made me so happy.

And then came a shitstorm of epic proportions. This, from her blog:

“Every few years I manage to touch the 3rd rail of the internet and I am reminded how aggressively histrionic so many men can be toward women disrupting the status quo. Since this tweet I have been called repeatedly <offensive terms warning> “idiot”, “ass”, “whore”, “piece of shit”, “dick”, “moron”, “twat”, “bitch”, “crazy bitch”, “asshole”, “motherfucker”, “garbage”, “cancer”, “psychopath”, “faggot”, “dyke”, “dyke ass”, “cunt”, and “retard”. I’ve been told to “shut up” and “fuck off”. I was told I should be “punched in the head”, “raped”, “euthanized”, that I “needed a bullet to the brain”, and “should kill myself”. I was sent cartoons of Nazis kicking women on the ground. Because I moved 5 shirts. 25 feet.”

I don’t understand why men are so easily threatened. Don’t they have daughters? Sisters? Mothers? What causes them to go straight to name-calling mode in these situations? Do they think that’s a good look? If this is an attempt to appear superior, it backfires in a monumental way.

I get that they are feeling threatened and are therefore lashing out. Their sense of entitlement and privilege is being challenged from all sides these days. They’re not used to that. They’re the only group that has had the luxury of not being used to that.

But I’d like to respectfully point out that some of their fears are patently absurd. Are these men afraid that their chances of working at NASA would be threatened by this small act? Trust me, this reactionary type of man isn’t fit to scrub a NASA toilet, let alone compete with the big girls.

But the most terrifying, most sobering fact about this type of backlash is that, thanks to other white males for the most part, these irrational and threatened men have access to guns. And it’s becoming quite obvious that it isn’t the terrorists, it’s the disenfranchised white male who poses the biggest threat to our society.

But the days of appeasing these men are over. I’ll be moving tank tops every chance I get now. Believe that. Keep fighting the good fight, Katie Hinde!

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On Valentine’s Day, actress Ellen Page came out in front of a large group of people at the Time to Thrive conference in Las Vegas. You can hear her moving and heartfelt speech by going here if you get my blog by e-mail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hlCEIUATzg but I’ll also attach the video below.

Since her speech, there has, of course, been a lot of critical backlash on the web. People are chiming in that being gay is a sin, and that horrible things should happen to Ellen and LGBT people in general. People are claiming that her speech was just a cheap way for her to get publicity. They are saying that there was no need to stir things up in this fashion.

What a steaming load of crap.

If you take the time to watch it, you can tell that coming out like this was a big deal to her. Her voice was shaking throughout the speech. But she did it for many reasons. Not only was she tired of lying by omission, but she knows she’s a role model, and she knows there are many LGBT youth out there who desperately need her to be one.

Suicide and depression rates among LGBT youth are a great deal higher than in the rest of the population. They are also much more likely to be bullied, harassed, discriminated against, and basically made to feel “less than.”

While I long for a time when someone saying “I’m gay” will cause as little an impression as saying “I have green eyes”, unfortunately now is not that time.

As long as we live in a world where people can be tied to barbed wire fences and beaten to death, we need people like Ellen Page to make speeches.

As long as there are countries where you can actually be imprisoned for being who you are, we need people like Ellen Page to make speeches.

As long as people can be attacked in the street for holding hands, and as long as there’s even one person out there who thinks that if you’re gay you must therefore be a pedophile, we need people like Ellen Page to make speeches.

As long as there are people out there who have to hide in closets of isolation, depression and pain because society will reject them otherwise, we need people like Ellen Page to make speeches.

There are dozens of public figures whom we are all pretty sure are gay, but they haven’t come out. This frustrates me, because they could be doing so much good in this world. Yes, they have a right to their privacy, but they are needed, and I call upon them to do the right thing.

A lesbian friend told me that when she came out to her fundamentalist Christian parents, her mother held her arms behind her back while her father beat her bloody, and then they locked her in a room for two weeks so she could “come to her senses.” She most certainly did. She hasn’t seen her parents since. But she went through years of depression afterwards on her way to becoming the proud lesbian she is today. She sure could have used this speech back then. And hopefully kids who are experiencing this same sort of alienation now will benefit from it as much as she would have.

So on behalf of dozens of friends as well as my favorite nephew, thank you, Ellen Page, for speaking out.

Tag: backlash

The NASA Tank Top Debacle